DREADFUL Loss OF LIFE BY FIRE.—A fire urns discovered in

Fetter Lane about half-past one o'clock on Sunday morning, in a house occupied by a baker named Grant. The watchmen, as is customary on such occasions, broke open the door; and the air which it had partially excluded being thus freely admitted (why should not the air be free to travel where it lists, as well as others ?), the whole house was in a "light low" in three or four minutes. The effects were most calamitous : no fewer than seven persons fell victims to the flames and several others were so dreadfully burnt that their recovery is extremely doubtful. The Coroner's Jury, according to the sage custom of juries, have been meddling about the origin of the fire, as if it mattered the turning of a surw—whether it was kindled in the garret or the cellar : the means of escaping from it, or of extinguishing it when dis- covered, have been allowed to pass without comment.

A fire broke out on Wednesday night in the parlour of Mr. Jones, silk- mercer, Newport Street, Leicester Square, which was not subdued till it Lad destroyed a great deal of property.

A fire broke out, last week, in the cabin of the schooner Ann, of London, bound for Liverpool to London, when about 120 miles W. by S. off Scilly. All attempts to stop the progress of the fire proving ineffectual, the crew took to the boat, and, after tossing about for a day and a night, were picked up by the Magdalen, of London. The chimney of a Government-building near the Naval Yard at Deal, having taken fire, last week, and burned with fury for some time, a boy was sent down when it seemed extinguished, for the purpose of cleaning it thoroughly. He came out crying, having hurt his foot. A hammock was thrown down and he was sent down again. He was heard almost imme- diately to cal for assistance. A rope was lowered, but he proved unable to grasp it. The wall was at length broken into, and the poor boy was found, head downwards, roasted to the middle.

[Can anything more atrocious be conceived, than to expose a creature of ten or twelve years of age to such death, merely to save a few shillings in the construction of a chimney? Were there a law passed to-morrow to put down this abominable trade, in a year after people would wonder by what perversion of reason it had been so long defended. But while the law is withheld, laziness and humanity will never want an excuse, and benevolent individuals and societies will work in vain.] As the captain and crew of the brig Anna, a Newcastle collier, lying at Bell Wharf tier, in the Lower Pool, Shadwell, were retiring to their berths on Wednesday evening, they were alarmed at perceiving that the vessel had sprang a leak. Recourse was had immediately to the pumps, but it proved unavailing. The seamen were obliged to jump into a boat alongside and had hardly done so when the vessel disappeared. It is supposed thL, at low water, she had struck upon some anchor in the bed of the river. SinewitEcx.—The Newry sailed on Wednesday week from Newry for Quebec, with four hundred Irish emigrants. The weather was hazy, the 'wind a-head, and on the second day she struck on a rock close to the main- land of Carnarvonshire, about four miles north of Bardsey Island. Every attempt together off being in vain, the mast was Cut, and fortunately fell upon,

a rock on the main-land; which enabled some of the crew to carry out a rope from the vessel to the shore, by means of which they were enabled, by most fatiguing and dangerous exertion, to convey nearly three hundred of the passengers to land in safety. At the time the vessel struck, the passengers were all in their berths, and most of them sea-sick. Some intrepid seamen,

who lived near the spot where the catastrophe occurred, proved eminently useful in saviroVa'yes. It is, however, supposed that about eighty have been lost. The inha( .nts of Carnarvon sheltered the surviving sufferers in the most humane and generous manner.

On the 26th of June last, the Clive sloop of war, belonging to the East India Company, lay in the port of Muscat. At night, the town appeared to be illuminated, and suddenly it was seen to be in flames. The houses, ex.

cept those of the grandees, being of wood, burned with great.fury, and in little more than an hour, about fifteen hundred houses were destroyed. The town is surrounded by an amphitheatre of mountains, some of them two thousand feet high, which, seen from their bases to their summits by the light of the burning town, presented a spectacle full of magnificence and ter- ror. Fortunately no lives were lost.

By the Cape of Good Hope Gazette, we learn that the Lady Holland, from London to Madras and Calcutta, struck on the 14th of February upon a reef

of rocks on the north end of Dassen Island, about forty miles to the north- ward of Table Bay. The passengers and crew were all saved, and it is be- lieved that the greater part of the cargo will be secured.

On Friday, a boat, containing nineteen persons, was upset in the bay of Westport, ten of whom were drowned.—Limerick Paper.

Harwich was visited on Wednesday with a tremendous gale from the atestward. Two vessels sunk ; and had the storm continued, the loss must have been great. On shore also the damage was considerable.

STEAM-BOAT EXPLOSION.—One of these unhappy accidents, which are so much the more to be lamented that there seems almost no difficulty in preventing them, took place on the Mississippi on the 24th of February last. The boat was named the Helen Macgregor. According to the first account, sixteen people lost their lives ; a second swells the loss to sixty ; and the New York Inquirer of the 18th of March makes it one hundred and twenty !

A person calling himself Valdez, went on Tuesday to the shop of Mr. Cohen, diamond-merchant, Bevis Marks, and expressed a wish to purchase some diamonds. A packet worth 700/. was shown him. He approved highly of their water, and contrived to walk off with them without leaving their price. A bank parcel, containing bills, notes, and checks of the value of 2000/. was stolen from the boot of the Devonport Mail on Sunday. There is rea- son to believe that the robbery was "a put-up one," and circumstances have transpired which render the apprehension of the thieves probable. Considerable excitement has been caused for some days past in the neigh- bourhood of Finchley, by a case similar in some respects to that of the late Mrs. Phillips. A Mrs. Geary, the wife of a labourer in that parish, was at- tended in her accouchement by an apothecary near the church. A draught was prescribed for her, which proved to be principally laudanum. The greatest efforts were necessary to prevent her from sleeping till the apothe- cary arrived. He used the stomach-pump, and administered hot water without intermission for an hour. For a long time there appeared no chance of her recovery ; but her life is now, we believe, out of danger.

As Mr. Minasi, an artist, was passing, on Wednesday afternoon, through Wyche Street, Strand, his head was caught between a baker's basket and a brewer's dray ; a projecting iron from which tore off one of his ears. .

A young man named Clements shot himself at Barnet on Sunday evening. A love disappointment is the cause assigned. He is not expected to recover; the wound is in his side.

An inquest was held on Saturday at the Black Horse, Rathbone Place, on the body of Benjamin Harpnr, a tradesman, who had cut his throat two days before. His niece, it appeared from evidence adduced at the inquest, was pregnant by him, and remorse had driven him to commit suicide.

A policeman named Maxwell was held to bail, at Worship Street, on Thursday, for assaulting and threatening Mr. Tovey, a jeweller, and drag- ging him to the watchhouse, when that gentleman insisted on being told the policeman's number and letter.